


Hate My Life

by Crowgirl



Series: Scars Remind Us [12]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Conversations, Feelings, M/M, Plot Advancement Playhouse, Sam drinks coffee
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-18
Updated: 2011-10-18
Packaged: 2017-10-24 18:33:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/266577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crowgirl/pseuds/Crowgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ongoing discussion, and ramifications thereof, between Dean and Castiel about the after-effects of Hell.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hate My Life

XII.

Castiel hears movement in the house, listens to Bobby cough his way into his bathroom on the floor below, Sam throw back his bedclothes and start to pad around his room.

He does not move yet, wanting to make sure that Dean will sleep. The younger man has not moved in the hours since Castiel urged sleep upon him. He lies sprawled under the bedclothes, one hand under his head, the other open and lax on the sheet.

Castiel can see the outline of his body below the thin sheet and wishes he understood more fully what human physical response means.

He knows he loves Dean, treasures him above anything else, wants to be near him and with him – and for a long time, he thought that was all there was. Love was not something which required a physical component. Love could express itself as caring, protection, help, companionship – nothing else was necessary. But something else _seemed_ to be necessary – or, at least, to be urging itself upon him. He _wants_ something else.

Sitting here and looking at Dean's shoulders on the pillow, for example – he wants to lean over and _touch_. Was his skin as soft and smooth as it looked? Did he have the same light freckles on his chest and back as he did on his cheekbones? Was the muscle on his arms-- Castiel looks out the window and snarls at himself silently.

This is not the time or the place. This is worse than his thoughtless kiss in the motel's parking lot.

Castiel stands, crosses to the bed, and gently brushes his fingertips over the sleeping man's forehead. Dean mutters something, rolling towards Castiel, one hand drifting up as if to catch his hand.

Castiel flinches back, remembering the events of a few hours ago, not wanting Dean to awake in terror again.

* * *

In the kitchen, Sam is already making coffee, eyes still half-closed, hair tousled, tugging his t-shirt down over his jeans. He dumps the last of the grounds in the top of the worn machine and slaps the top down, then he blinks over his shoulder and nods. 'Hey, Cas...Coffee?'

'No. Thank you.'

Then Sam seems to realise what he just said and turns around. 'Hey. Castiel. What are you doing here?'

'Your brother wished to talk to me.' Castiel stands in the doorway, wondering if perhaps he should have simply slipped out the back door.

Sam gives him what Castiel suspects Dean would call a “bitch face.” 'He's been wishing to talk to you for a friggin' week, Cas.'

'I am...sorry.' Castiel considers sitting, then decides it would be unwise. Sam in this mood is unpredictable. He has no wish to sit through an hour-long harangue on the iniquity of his behavior towards Dean. He is already too aware of it.

'Yeah.' The coffee maker chirps and Sam turns back, pouring himself a cup while the last of the brew is still draining into the pot and dumping in sugar. He turns back to the table and sits down, pushing his hair out of his eyes with one hand. 'Is...did...did you sort...stuff out?'

Castiel remains silent.

'Mm.' Sam scowls into his coffee mug, takes a sip, and pulls a face. 'Look, Cas...Dean's...Dean can be a real jerk, but he was torn up about you being gone.'

Castiel can still think of nothing to say. He does not imagine that Dean will miss him this morning.

Sam sighs. 'D'you want to sit down or anything?'

'No. Thank you – I thought I would go sit outside. It is a lovely morning.'

'Yeah...yeah, it is.' Sam glances up at the door leading to the stairs. 'What'd you do with Dean anyway?'

'He is still asleep. I imagine he may sleep for most of the morning.'

'Oh – _oh_.' Sam's eyes go wide and he suddenly blushes violently and looks back down into his coffee cup. 'Okay. Right. I...yeah. Good. Fine. Great.'

Castiel looks at him curiously for a moment, decides he is unlikely to understand this sudden shift in behavior any time soon, and should probably make his escape before Sam decides to return to lecturing him again.

Perhaps the single sip of coffee has had an unpredictably good effect on him.

* * *

Castiel goes onto the back porch rather than the larger front one, not wishing to have a similar conversation with Bobby as well.

There is an old wicker-bottomed kitchen chair in one corner of the porch and he sits gingerly upon it, gathering the trenchcoat over his knees. The morning is fresh, cool after the rain the night before. The earth smells wet and rich and he thinks the stream which runs in the wooded place at the far end of the field will be full and loud, cold water chuckling over rocks and logs.

 _‘There are easier ways to do this.’_

'Jimmy.'

 _‘Who else?’_

Castiel sighs. 'I am sorry.'

 _‘What for?’_

'All of this. I...feel this has gone beyond...'

 _'I think we're past apologies, don't you?'_

'I suppose so.' Castiel rubs at his temples. There is a slow, throbbing pain in his head.

 _'What are you doing, Castiel?'_

'I wonder if this is what humans call a headache.' It is an odd sensation: he imagines that this is what it would feel like if someone were to place his skull in a light vise.

 _'Yeah. It is. Take some ibuprofen or something before it gets worse.'_

'Thank you.'

 _'Hey, I want this body back in good shape at some point.'_

'I will do my best for you.' Castiel knows he is probably lying, knows Jimmy knows, and can think of nothing better to say.

He will do his best, but he doubts it will be good enough. Suddenly he doubts that anything he can do will be good enough. He has left Dean wounded, even if he is not awake to know it yet, and he would give anything he has, anything he has ever had, to be able to make that better.

 _'Don't angels go to high school?' Jimmy sounds disgusted, but amused at the same time._

'I do not understand the question.'

 _'No, I guess you wouldn't. I can feel you...being miserable and weird. And maybe that's not saying much for you but it feels strange on this end. So what's the problem?'_

'I...do not understand.' Castiel leans back in the chair, letting his hands fall open on his knees. A robin flies past, perches on the porch railing for a minute and looks at him quizzically, head tilted on one side. Castiel thinks, then points. The robin drops onto the ground and, within a few strikes, unearths a fat, writhing worm. 'I do not understand what is...what I am doing.'

 _'You're helping a robin get breakfast.'_

'No.'

 _'Yeah, okay, that was a cheap shot. Look...' Jimmy is silent for a minute, then says thoughtfully, 'My daughter came home once when she was little...she was all full of stories about all the things she and some boy at school had done that day: the games they played and what they ate at snacktime and whatever.'_

'Yes?' Castiel does not understand why Jimmy is telling him this but he listens patiently. It is the least he can do.

 _'When you think about this Dean kid...you sound like she did.'_

'I sound like a small child?'

 _'Okay, poor explanation. I was hoping you might be quicker on the uptake. Hasn't it occurred to you that you've got a crush on him?'_

'What does that mean? I do not wish to subject him to physical pressure.' Castiel thinks Dean has had enough of that.

 _Jimmy snorts. 'Well, yeah, you do, but I'm not explaining that to you. You like him, right?'_

'Yes.'

 _'And you think about him a lot, you worry about him, you want him to be happy and safe...Maybe you think about his smile a lot or his hands? Maybe the color of his eyes?'_

Castiel hesitates, then nods, with the obscure feeling that he is being trapped into something.

 _'How long have you been watching humans again?'_

'Dean asked me the same question.'

 _'And what did you tell him?'_

'He knows the answer. I have watched the earth for thousands of years. I have watched humanity since it first appeared.'

 _'And you've never watched a single high school girl with her first boyfriend?'_

'I--' Castiel stops. He had. Hundreds of times. High school girls with boys, girls with girls, boys with boys – a fifty-year-old who had just met the person he would love for the rest of his life; a sixteen-year-old talking on the phone to her best girlfriend about the boy they both liked; a thirty-year-old woman daydreaming about the barista at her favorite coffee-shop, the barista wondering when her favorite customer will come in again.

 _'Figured it out now?' Jimmy sounded almost gleeful._

Castiel clenches his hands on his knees. 'This cannot – I will not let this happen.'

 _'What? Why?'_

'I have let too much happen already.' He remembers the touch of Dean's mouth on his, the taste that he was somehow sure was only Dean's lips. He wants that again, is suddenly thirsty for it.

 _'Castiel...Castiel, relax. So you've got a crush. Big deal. He likes you, too – you’re golden!'_

'I hurt him!' Castiel can see the blankness and breaking on Dean's face.

 _Jimmy is silent for a minute, then says slowly: 'Everyone hurts the people they love sometime, Castiel. It's...it's impossible to avoid. It happens. People aren't perfect. You've got to do the best you can – apologise when you fuck up.'_

'How can I apologise for this!'

 _'You don't have to apologise if it's not your fault.'_

Castiel has no answer for that.

 _'And what happened to that kid in Hell? Not your fault. You dragged him out, Castiel; you saved him.'_

'And then I reopened a doorway to Hell in his mind,' Castiel mutters.

 _'He would have remembered sooner or later, right?' Jimmy waits a minute, then prompts again: 'Right?'_

'Most likely. Probably.'

 _'Yeah, okay, so he would have remembered on his own. Maybe in the middle of something important and – here's the bit I want you to pay attention to, okay? – without you there to catch him. You held him together last night, Castiel – even I felt that. You kept him in one piece, looked after him, made sure he was safe.'_

This is true but Castiel does not feel that he should take credit for it. What else could he have done? Abandoning Dean was...impossible, unthinkable. 'Is this what a ...crush feels like?'

 _Jimmy laughs. 'Well, it's been a long time for me, but...yeah, from what I remember.'_

'But – I do not understand what it is –' Castiel hesitates and glances down at himself. He has not given much thought to this vessel other than what will keep it going until he no longer needs it. He knows Dean considers his clothes ridiculous but they do not matter to him; he keeps them as neat as possible so as not to draw attention to himself, but that is where his interest ends. But the body beneath the dingy blue suit tells him things he does not understand.

 _Jimmy coughs. 'Um...yeah, see, this is where I can't help you, Castiel.'_

'What? Why not?'

 _'Because I'm not gay. I know what your—my--' He is silent for a minute, then goes on slowly: 'I know what your body is telling you. But I think you have to figure out what to do about it on your own.'_

'I will do nothing.' Castiel steels himself.

 _'Uh – I don't think that will work. Not for long anyway.'_

'Why not?'

 _'Because it just doesn't work like that, Castiel. I don't know why – it just doesn't. The more you ignore it, the stronger it will get.'_

'Then I will acknowledge it and it will go away!'

 _'Do you want it to?'_

Castiel is silent. This is an unanswerable question – or, rather, a question he does not want to answer because he fears his answer is wrong.

 _Jimmy is silent for several minutes and then, gently, says, 'Castiel. I...I don't know what you angels get for instructions in this kind of thing but – I don't think there's a wrong answer for this one. I mean – I think a wrong answer would be something that would...would hurt one of you. Or both of you.'_

'I think I have already done that.'

 _'So fix it. Make it better. Apologise. Buy him roses. I don't know! Think of something! It gets...dark in here when you think about leaving. But do me a favor, okay?'_

'What?'

 _'Just...put me back to sleep? It's like having some kind of weird split personality being half-awake in my own head. Give me a good dream and send me back to sleep.'_

Castiel nods. 'The best dream, Jimmy. I promise.'

 _'Thanks. Good luck.'_

Castiel reaches inwards with a tendril of Grace, creating a dream of Jimmy's perfect day: his child, his friends, his wife, together, happy. He feels Jimmy recede, fall into the dream, protected and safe.

He sits where he is, listening to the sounds in the house. Bobby comes into the kitchen, greets Sam, takes a cup of coffee. The two discuss breakfast, where Dean is, and what they will do during the day. The house warms in the morning sun and he can hear the wood expanding and drying from the storm. A breeze rises. Inside, the two men finish breakfast, take a second coffee, move out towards the front of the house and the junkyard.

He can think of nothing that would be an adequate apology.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Hate My Life," Theory of a Deadman, _Scars & Souvenirs._


End file.
